A lie is committed only when there is knowledge of it at the time it is being said
Then saying something that you genuinely do not know not to be true is not a lie
Nor is saying you will do something when you do not actually do it at a later time

When someone is deliberately misrepresenting their own thought/belief to another one is lying.

Lying is about honesty and sincerity... not truth.

One can believe that "X" is true and sincerely say "X". This speaker is being honest, and that honesty... that sincere speech act... has nothing at all to do with whether or not "X" is true. It has everything to do with what one believes as compared/contrasted to what one says.

Last edited by creativesoul on Sat Nov 03, 2018 8:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

When someone is deliberately misrepresenting their own thought/belief to another one is lying.

Lying is about honesty and sincerity... not truth.

One can believe that "X" is true and sincerely say "X". This speaker is being honest, and that honesty... that sincere speech act... has nothing at all to do with whether or not "X" is true. It has everything to do with what one believes as compared/contrasted to what one says.

You are running a fool's errand in explaining what should be very self explanatory and easily googled! You hand feed someone that only wants attention and a cozy chat!

When someone is deliberately misrepresenting their own thought/belief to another one is lying.

Lying is about honesty and sincerity... not truth.

One can believe that "X" is true and sincerely say "X". This speaker is being honest, and that honesty... that sincere speech act... has nothing at all to do with whether or not "X" is true. It has everything to do with what one believes as compared/contrasted to what one says.

You are running a fool's errand in explaining what should be very self explanatory and easily googled! You hand feed someone that only wants attention and a cozy chat!

Most folk I've been fortunate enough to discuss this topic with think/believe that a lie must be false.

And if it is false .. does it need to be known to be false at the time that the statement is made?

And if so by whom does it need to be known to be false?

What about statements whose truth/falsity is extremely hard if not impossible to determine?

No.

Yes.

The speaker.

Doesn't matter. What does matter is what the speaker believes to be true. If they misrepresent their own thought/belief, they are lying.

Well I think I agree with you: A lie is a statement that is believed by the speaker to be false and is made with the intention of deceiving.

(The bit about deceiving is to differentiate between lies and jokes or deliberate exaggeration etc.)

Yes. One cannot mistakenly misrepresent one's own thought/belief, unless they misspeak. In those cases, an honest speaker will immediately correct themselves. The dishonest ones will wait until they are called out... and then claim to have misspoke. That would be compounding lies. Politicians love to say that they misspoke at some earlier time. I say bullshit, because everyone knows - at the time of utterance - whether or not they believe what they just said.

"I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

That conflates truth and belief... unfortunately. Taken literally, if one's belief is false, one can speak sincerely by virtue of believing that everything they've said is true(which is all any reasonable judge or jury can expect from witness testimony) and still fail to do what they swore to do.